Make it work!

Every now and again I get a bug up my arse to purge and organize when my creative mojo is threatened by the clutter of life.  That being said I took a mid-quilt hiatus to reorganize my "studio" as it were.  This endeavor involved a bit of what I like to call "unfortunate husband duties" where my hunny is summoned to help me make it work.  This time it involved repurposing an item--a large solid wood shelf that was handmade by the previous owners of our home and formerly employed holding paint cans and gardening supplies in the garage.  It's a little bowed, but no matter as it was soon to go into retirement as a mostly fabric holding shelf.

Typically when I go through these phases, hunny and I will attempt to make use of something already lying around the house (there is a LOT of stuff lying around!), so this shelf was his idea in response to my frazzled text about the world ending, etc.  He spent a whole afternoon and many beers sanding every surface of it, which cleaned it up real nice!  I decided not to varnish or seal (lazy) and instead just wiped it down with a solution of water, lemon, baking soda and my favorite essential oil and let it dry in the sun.  This is my favorite treatment for old wooden things.

So I finished my quilt top and used my new machine for the first time today.  The week of purge/clean/organize was well worth it.

before

during

after

after

after

i love my little sidecar!  keeps all my junk tidy (: